hello everyone welcome back to my
channel today I'm gonna share with you
some of my top tips for when you are
going to undergo a c-section whether
it's scheduled elective basically any
time where your obstetrician has
determined that this a c-section would
be the safest method for you to deliver
your baby the other reason why I think
this video could be helpful is because a
c-section is always a possibility
whether you're expecting one or not even
just going into the hospital expecting a
vaginal delivery a c-section may be
necessary if there's something that
would threaten the health and life of
the baby or you as the mom so I wanted
to make this video to make that kind of
like an educational video and to help
you kind of olay any fears that you may
be having or misapprehension or any
misconceptions you may have about
c-sections so before we get into the
video I wanted to say if you enjoyed
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into the video all right my top tip if
you're going into the hospital for
whatever reason don't eat a lot of
people want to go into the hospital and
they want to eat beforehand because they
don't know when's the next time they're
gonna have a good meal that may be true
but please don't eat from an
anesthesiologist to a patient please do
not eat we require if at all possible a
minimum of eight hours of nothing by
mouth before you can undergo anesthesia
this applies whether it's a spinal
epidural or a neural anaesthetic for a
c-section the reason being that when you
undergo general anesthesia there's
reasons why you need to be I think by
mouth I have a whole video on this which
I will link up top so you can watch that
through if you're curious about why you
can't eat before anesthesia and the
reason even if you're having a spinal or
epidural for labor or c-section is that
there's always a chance that you might
have to undergo general anesthesia
in an emergency in order to really
create a buffer zone and make sure that
we are minimizing that risk as much as
possible we ask that you please don't
eat before you come into the hospital
please please please it's also applies
if you start having contractions and go
into labor what we would really like to
see is that it's been eight hours from
the time that you've last eaten to the
time where anesthesia is going to be a
possibility so basically that means as a
laboring woman anytime you set foot into
that hospital anesthesia is going to be
a possibility because you might get
checked by the doctor than Mike the
doctor might notice something is wrong
and say we need to go back for a
c-section right now just the other day I
was covering the labor and delivery deck
or the obstetric anesthesia and a lady
walked in ten minutes later she was
being rushed on a gurney to the
operating room with myself there as her
anesthesiologist emergently putting her
to sleep to save the life of her
premature twins these are things like it
could be literally ten minutes that
you're there in that hospital and all of
a sudden you're going undergoing general
anesthesia
now in those situations it's not always
predictable you can't always be like
well I'll wait eight hours before I come
into the hospital we'll make it work but
you can greatly minimize your risk of
complications from eating if you just
don't plan to eat right before you go
into the hospital I know there are a lot
of times where I'll talk to a patient
and I'm interviewing them before I place
an epidural and I say well at some time
you ate and they had a big breakfast
before they came into the hospital I'm
like oh goody now the next topic I want
to talk to you about regarding a
c-section is the type of anesthesia that
you may experience there's four main
types of anesthetics that you may
encounter for a c-section whether it's
scheduled or it's an emergency either
way there's four different options
number one and most common is a spinal a
spinal is a little injection in the back
it lasts about two to three hours it
numbs you from about the nipples down
and it eliminates any pain that may be
involved in a c-section so when placed
properly you should feel absolutely no
pain from the c-section and what this
does it is this
Fist method of anesthesia to deliver a
child that is why it is the standard of
care around the world
it doesn't expose baby to any anesthetic
and it doesn't put mom at risk under
anesthesia there's a whole host of
issues that place you at a higher risk
for complications under anesthesia just
being pregnant kind of eliminates that
risk or minimizes it greatly while also
minimizing risks to baby everybody's
happy and it's a really really great
anesthetic what can you expect most
likely your doctor will have you sit up
on the operating room table right when
you come into the room place some
monitors on you clean your back and
using sterile technique will give you
some numbing medicine and then give you
the spinal shock you shouldn't expect
this to hurt any more than an IV when
done properly it should not hurt any
more than your IV and I always tell
people the spinal needle is about the
width of a human hair so it's even
smaller than your IV needle was and
there's already numbing medicine
involved too so most people if they do
complain about anything they complain
about numbing medicine because it burns
so you can always ask your doctor if
there's a way to mix something into the
numbing medicine so that it doesn't burn
and there is the epidural now you may
already be coming to the operating room
with an epidural because you are
planning on having a vaginal delivery
and now we need to progress to a
c-section if you have a very good
working epidural we can use the epidural
for your c-section we bolus up some
medicine that is different from the
medicine you had been getting that's a
lot stronger and that allows you to have
a c-section safely the same way that a
spinal would be used another option in a
more complicated surgery a longer
surgery if we're anticipating a much
longer duration of the surgery we can
use a CSE
which is combined spinal and epidural
and what this means is once we we place
an epidural before we actually thread
that catheter we do a spinal through
that epidural needle so you get the
benefits of a spinal and then we thread
the catheter for the epidural so if
we're anticipating that this duration of
surgery is going to be longer than the
that the spinal then we can actually
towards the tail end of that spinal we
can actually start titrating in some
medication through the epidural so we
can last as long as we want it to and
the fourth method of anesthesia is
general anesthesia we try to avoid this
at all costs
and a pregnant woman there are many
reasons for this that I don't have time
to go into but any obstetric
anesthesiologists will know that we'd
rather have an awake pregnant woman
delivering for a c-section than one
asleep but sometimes it's unavoidable
any obstetric anesthesiologist should be
well prepared to manage you safely under
anesthesia it's been done hundreds of
millions of times but that is another
reason why we ask you not to eat because
it would be kind of like having
emergency surgery for any other reason
what this means generally is that if
you're going to sleep you usually can't
have that one special person with you
that you designate to sit next to you in
the operating room which is what we
usually do here in America when you have
a spinal epidural whatever for a
c-section and you're awake for it
generally when we do a general
anesthesia we don't permit that to
happen because of the circumstances that
required the patient to go to sleep it's
just not a good place to be while the
patient's under general anesthesia it's
not something family wants to see it's
not something they should see it can be
quite upsetting so it's usually
something where we put the plate patient
to sleep and we're taking care of mom
and we're taking care of baby and we're
also doing this in a very special way
that minimizes again the exposure of
anesthesia to the baby so either way you
can be confident that you're going to be
in good hands your baby's gonna be in
good hands
and everything we do in our training in
our profession in our career is to
maximize safety so safety for mom safety
for baby minimize exposure to anesthesia
if at all possible that is our goal is
to just really give you the best result
the most pleasant experience the safest
experience also while maximizing benefit
to mom and baby and minimizing risk so
rest assured a c-section
is the most commonly performed surgery
in the world if not at least in the in
the United States it's the most common
type of surgery a woman will encounter
and it's it's so commonly done we do at
least five to ten of them a day just in
my hospital alone and that's quite a lot
the next question I want to answer is
what will you feel what can you expect
to feel especially because you've had an
injection in your back whether it's a
spinal epidural or CSE and that is you
can expect to feel touching pulling or
pressure especially when baby wants to
come out so when they're actually
pulling baby out that's when you're
gonna feel the most pressure that can be
a little bit uncomfortable but it's not
painful you will feel no pain with a
properly placed spinal or epidural
none at all you're gonna know that
they're working down there and you're
gonna feel your belly kind of moving but
you won't be able to see anything and
really it's we're just talking and
chatting for the few minutes that it
takes to get baby out the next topic I
want to address is nausea nausea is a
very common occurrence during a
c-section why it happens to be because
whenever a spinal or epidural is placed
and the medication that's placed in that
spinal or epidural tends to bring blood
pressure down just like any anaesthetic
anesthetics tend to bring blood pressure
down sometimes if the blood pressure
gets low enough then you start to feel
slightly nauseous and for us what I like
to tell my c-section patients is you can
expect that you might feel a little
nausea please let us know the moment
you'll feel nausea coming on because
it's gonna better allow us to treat you
before it gets too late and you feel
like you need to throw up the earlier
you tell your anesthesia personnel
whether it's a doctor or a nurse then
the earlier they can treat it with some
medication to bring your blood pressure
up it works much faster in treating
nausea than nausea that comes on by any
other cause so this is not the same type
of nausea from feeling sick or queasy or
motion sick or anything like that
this is a totally different type of
nausea and it's completely treatable and
preventable all right so you've had your
c-section you have your bundle of joy if
you had a spinal you can expect that
spinal to wear off within approximately
three hours of the
it was plate so you might feel tingling
coming back you might feel it come from
your toes up you might start to feel
like you can wiggle your toes a little
bit more you start feeling tingly
sensations that just means that the
numbing medicine is wearing off it's no
big deal
hopefully when your epidural or spinal
was placed the doctor actually placed
some long-acting medication in your
spinal or epidural that actually can
hang around for about 24 hours and give
you long lasting pain relief without
numbing so it's really really nice to
help prevent the pain associated with
the incision from the c-section so
hopefully you wait I mean when that
spinal wears off even though it's worn
off you're still very comfortable
usually it's not an issue because
they're proactive about it so it's not
something that you should be too
concerned about just make sure that
you're communicating with your nurse
your doctor if you are experiencing any
pain that you feel needs to be taken
care of a little bit better all right so
those are my top tips for what to expect
if you're planning on having a c-section
whether you're planning one or not
I think this information can be very
helpful for any expecting mom because I
think it gives you a good grasp of what
can go on during a c-section how
important it is to listen to your
medical team to trust in your medical
team and to go with the flow enjoy the
ride know that everyone is on the same
page on the same team with the same goal
and that is healthy mom healthy baby
thank you so much for watching again if
you enjoyed this video please like the
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friend if you know any expecting moms
out there anybody who's expecting a baby
and you think this might be some helpful
information maybe they're really worried
about having a c-section and they just
want to know do their research and know
what they're going to expect on the day
then go ahead and share this video with
them I made this video to be helpful and
I would love if it helps at least one
person out there so thank you so much
for watching and I'll catch you in the
next video bye